I was lucky enough to spend last week in London attending one of the best organized and friendly conferences I have ever had the pleasure of speaking at. 44CON has the DerbyCon “All in The Family” model of a small intimate conference down with a crew that DefCon would die to have.
I arrived in London on Tuesday morning and spent Tuesday and Wednesday riding the tube and checking out the hottest tourist spots in London:
I even found my families British Coat of Arms (or was ripped off by a tourist trap):
By late Wednesday afternoon when I made it back to the hotel I was tired and had caught a nasty cold that gave me the title of patient zero of 44Con-Flu.
Thursday I rolled out of bed just in time to walk over to the conference center and get into the green room before my talk on “Security Lessons from Dictators” was going to start. I was sure I was going to be the first person to ever throw up on stage at 44CON but Dominic Spill saved me by awesomely running to tesco and getting me a vitamin water and a Lucozade (which is an English miracle drug). I made it through my talk which was very well received and back into bed for a 5 hour nap before I showed back up for the InfoSec vs Technical panel that was extremely fun to be part of.
I was doing a little better by Friday and was able to catch most of the hidden track talks which due to the Chatham House Rule I think I can only tell you were extremely awesome.
Steve and Adrian have a really good thing going on in London and if you have a chance to attend, speak at or sneak into 44con in the near future I would suggest that you do it.
